A man accused of creating and distributing a notorious malicious software kit, known as “Blackhole,” recently was arrested in Russia.

The software kit is best known for infecting personal computers. It lets hackers take part in such activities as identity theft and providing fraudulent anti-virus software.

The suspect was identified in a Reuters (News - Alert) news report by his hacking name, "Paunch."

The Blackhole Exploit Kit was recently ranked 24th among all online malware. It impacts 36,199 websites in some 218 countries, AVG said.

“Blackhole Exploit Kit is a malicious code present on fraudulent websites or illegally injected on legitimate but hacked websites without the knowledge of the administrator. The intention behind these code injections is to detect and exploit vulnerabilities on applications installed on your computer to install malicious and unwanted software that compromise the security of all data on the affected PC,” AVG explained.

ZDNet added that the software kit includes PHP scripts which run on a web server. Blackhole targets flaws in such offerings as Adobe (News - Alert) Reader, Flash and Java, ZDNet said.

News about the possible arrest of Paunch spread quickly.

Jerome Segura, senior security researcher at MalwareBytes, said Paunch’s arrest, if true, is "a major event in the exploit kit business, one that could trigger a chain reaction leading to more arrests and disruption."

In response to the news, Xylitol tweeted a message from Darkode.com posted by Paunch, which translates as "I will never go to jail! Do not worry friends."

But some sector watchers see any void coming from the arrest to be filled by another person.

“This is like arresting an illicit drug kingpin,” Rabid Howler Monkey said on ZDNet. “There are plenty more miscreants waiting to be king and a new kingpin will emerge. Illicit drugs will continue to be sold. Make no mistake, online crime will continue. Another exploit kit, or perhaps two or three exploit kits, will soon fill the vacuum.”